That full page article appeared in The Age on Saturday May 10. For more than five years, Ed O'Loughlin was Fairfax's correspondent in the Middle East. He's an Irishman, who recently decided it was time to go home. He reported for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and filed his farewell piece to both papers. Yet not a word of the story was printed in the SMH.

We tracked O'Loughlin down in Dublin, and asked if he was surprised.

Yes I was very surprised. It was filed several days in advance and cleared through all the usual channels. It was pulled at the last minute, I understand, by the editor Alan Oakley. It's the first time in five and a half years that I've had a piece spiked.

— Statement from Ed O'Loughlin (Journalist) to Media Watch

A bit of background. The Middle East - and particularly, the sixty-year-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians - is arguably the toughest assignment a reporter can get. Passions run high; events, present and past, are interpreted utterly differently by each side. And every word you file will be scrutinised for perceived bias and error by your readers.

Ed O'Loughlin's reporting has copped a lot of criticism - from one quarter in particular.

ViewpointMichael Danby

…there's nothing funny about O'Loughlin's systematic bias against Israel, which is indeed both intellectually lazy and politically intemperate.

And much, much more, going back years. And the criticism wasn't confined to print. There have been direct meetings with Fairfax management, too. For example, a letter about O'Loughlin's reporting in the Australian Jewish News in February tells us:

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies has made firm representations in person to the editor and his team at The Sydney Morning Herald about the above issues…

David D KnollPresidentNSW Jewish Board of Deputies

— Letter from David Knoll to the Australian Jewish News, 29th February, 2008

This kind of pressure can wear journalists - and editors - down. But as Ed O'Loughlin told me:

There has been an intensive lobbying effort to skew the Herald and The Age to a pro-Israeli position and I've had nothing but support until now. That's why I'm surprised that they pulled my final piece.

— Statement from Ed O'Loughlin (Journalist) to Media Watch

There's no doubt that Ed O'Loughlin spent a lot of time reporting sympathetically on the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. He called the story as he saw it - and he seldom saw the Israeli Defence Force in a favourable light. His farewell feature, though more personal than his normal news reports, was no different.

...the Israeli Defence Force's culture of denial and impunity, repeatedly condemned by Israeli and foreign rights groups, does nothing for your confidence when you have reason to fear that someone you can't see is studying you on a computer screen, or through a gun sight.

I was told informally that there were concerns about how the pro-Israel lobby would react to it.

— Statement from Ed O'Loughlin (Journalist) to Media Watch

Other sources at the Herald have told Media Watch the same thing. The editor, naturally enough, has not. He said:

I never discuss why something is or isn't published, suffice to say it's called editing and it happens daily. I don't discuss the performance of individual journalists in a public forum; I find it more constructive to talk to them.

Of course, editors have a right to edit. But it seems a poor reward for five years of full time service in a dangerous and taxing patch for a correspondent to have his final feature spiked, without explanation. And arguably it sends an unfortunate message, both to his critics - and to his successor, The Age's respected Jason Koutsoukis.